Sunday, February 11, 2024, 4:16:44PM EST
For some reason after my century ride in November I lost my mind. While on that ride I began to realize all the things that were possible with the new fitness I had built up. Ironically, I lost most of that fitness in December while faffing about testing Digital Nomad by Bike living that morphed into an obsession with bikepacking, “race touring,” and Tour Divide. In fact, I very nearly sold my indoor bike (which would have been a catastrophic mistake).
The main thing I forgot during December is that the primary reason I like to ride my bike is to stay healthy and feel good. While the call of the road is real, and I do desperately need to get outside and travel, I do not necessarily have to pair that with ultra-endurance bikepacking and excessive bike-across-where-ever-the-fuck bike tours. In fact, if I’m brutally honest with myself, I’d really rather just improve my health and push my physical limits riding and have someone else mess with all food and sleeping gear and stuff. It is the riding—particularly in beautiful country—that I really enjoy. Gearing out a heavy bike is just a necessity to make riding outside even possible in some cases. But I would always rather bike as fast and safely as possible between two luxurious hotels and have five-star meals and soak in a jacuzzi by an indoor fire rather than gather firewood and protecting myself from bears and hypothermia.
I do so love the outdoors, but when combining biking with the outdoors (without a sag wagon supporting everything) the appeal of both suffer. As soon as you are self-supported the enjoyment of riding the bike really diminishes. Even the most ultra-light bikepacking setups like those from Tour Divide make for absolutely miserable biking experiences compared to an unencumbered hard-tail.
On the other hand, the appeal of beating the outdoors and remaining absolutely cozy and comfortable in the great wild is completely discarded by most bikepackers and even bike tourists who don’t carry enough gear to actually camp comfortably and safely outdoors. When I realized I was going to have to drop carrying a stove, camp chair, bear canister, or even a fucking tent for Christ’s sake in order to remain a “true” bikepacker then entire thing began to lose all appeal to me. Then I actually pushed my reduced weight bikepacking rig around on even minimal trails around here and realized the entire fun part about riding a bike had been completely destroyed, no descending at high speed, no jumps, no berms, no rocketing up steep hills, no questionable cornering. All that remained was the worst part of bike riding, the discomfort, sweating, jarring, and pain, and for what, for the privilege of sleeping with the smallest possible pad under a tarp in the rain without hot coffee in the morning because bears love the smell and keeping it anywhere near my tent is a guaranteed way to eventually have a very unpleasant bear encounter. Why not just pay for a camp site, sleep there without fear of bears, and bring the bikes to take on a spirited, fun ride for 2-5 hours, and then come back and enjoy all the cozy comforts of car camping? Or why not save up and pay to go on a supported tour instead staying in lodging provided for you?
The more I consider my favorite experiences with a bike in the outdoors I realize supported rides are so much better. I ran support for the Kokeppeli classic, a bike “race” that was supported to a level of luxury that was almost obscene. (My company actually forgot I was out in the middle of nowhere at an aide station and I had to wrap myself in the plastic table cloth after the sun started to set). Then there are the the Moab White Rim supported rides. They were by far my favorite memories. Our mountain bikes had nothing but water and some energy bars weighing them down meaning we had the most fun we could possibly have on those amazing trails. I never had to worry about things bouncing off or having too much weight to really push a big hill climb. I never had to worry about sweating through my layers or any of that. I just had pure joy of biking on the trail as hard as I wanted to push it knowing a hot meal and my tent and cozy pad were already there waiting for me.
What I’m trying to say is that “race touring” is just stupid to me now. (I once raved about it.) You give up all the best things about racing along with all the best things about touring. Bikepacking at a slow pace could allow me to really enjoy the outdoors properly and without sweating through all my layers every time, but I prefer doing it without any performance expectation at all. If I push the pace like I would when racing or doing a supported bike ride none of my gear would ever be dry. And that doesn’t even take into consideration the weather on a long trip. In other words, bikepacking should be nice and ridiculously slow for lots of reasons. It really should just be backpacking but with a bike.
And as for racing, I do love a good race. Entering a mountain bike trail race would always be way more fun than suffering on the Tour Divide. And doing a relatively short 120km (75 mile) local Gran Fondo sponsored by the local cycling club is just as fun and safe on the road. When hundreds of people are all biking it at the same time all the stress of riding in traffic is diminished significantly. (The shorter the distance, the safer, by the way, since it is easier to block traffic for those durations.) Thinking of those events is far more fun to imagine than suffering alone with the least amount of sleep system possible.
And regarding Tour Divide, let’s be real, TD isn’t a bike competition at all, it’s a suffer competition. Honestly, it’s more about who can suffer the most, sleeping in outhouses, putting up with horrible weather, and eating the shittiest food their bodies can tolerate, than riding the fastest. To be fair, all endurance racing falls under the “suffer-fest” category to some degree. And while I have always loved endurance sports, I’d rather my competitive suffering take a more specific form.